FAA investigates second SkyWest gear-up landing

The US FAA is investigating a partial gear-up landing by a SkyWest Airlines CRJ200 yesterday afternoon in Milwaukee, the second SkyWest Bombardier CRJ partial gear-up landing in less than a week.

Flight 3074, a CRJ200 with 36 passengers and three crew members, was en route from Omaha when problems with the landing gear occurred on approach to Milwaukee's General Mitchell International Airport. The crew declared an emergency when 9nm (17km) from the airport and performed one low-altitude pass of the tower to allow controllers to verify the left landing gear had not deployed.

After landing with the gear up, passengers deplaned through the main cabin door. The aircraft, registered as N498CA, was built in 2003 and is owned by EDC, according to Flightglobal's ACAS database.

SkyWest says all passengers and crew deplaned safely, and that the incident is under investigation.

On September 25, a CRJ900 operated by SkyWest subsidiary Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) landed with its right landing gear fully retracted after diverting to JFK airport in New York. The incident is now being investigated by the US NTSB.

In its initial report, the NTSB says pilots of ASA flight 4951 were en route from Atlanta to White Plains, New York with 60 passengers and two flight attendants when they received an "unsafe gear warning". The crew diverted to JFK and landed with the gear up. Passengers evacuated on the runway.

The CRJ900 involved in the JFK incident, N133EV, was delivered in 2009 and according to ACAS is owned by ASA's former owner Delta Air Lines.